State DEP scores legal win on its water rules

By Fred Hiers

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection scored a legal victory this week when Florida's 1st District Court of Appeal upheld a 2012 administrative law judge's ruling that state regulators acted within their authority by establishing Florida's own water nutrient rules.

The ruling Monday was the latest in a series of legal parries that date back to 1998, when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency first ordered Florida and other states to come up with more stringent freshwater standards. Florida didn't comply, so state environmentalists sued the EPA to force the federal agency to develop water nutrient standards for the state if it wouldn't do so on its own.

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